Are you an old-school supermarket baguette fan, do you prefer a simple Italian-style toast or have you your own approach to combining cloves and loaves?

Seldom has a dessert rejoiced in such a proudly unpretentious name as the bread and butter pudding. It's Victorian nursery food at its finest; blandly milky, comfortingly stodgy, and just the thing to use up all the staling half loaves left hanging around by Christmas guests who can't see an untouched item of food without taking a bite.

There's no great mystery to making sourdough. It just takes practice and a lot of patience

The feeling of accomplishment you’ll get from pulling a deep-brown, crackly-crisp baguette out of your own oven is indescribable. Even the loaf itself celebrates your success: hold it up to your ear to hear its signature “song” as it cools. (What, you’ve never done that? Try it…)

Look, I'm delighted that rosemary flourishes in my garden. I use it so frequently, tucking it in and under game birds, lamb joints and whole fish when I roast them, chopping it into marinades, adding it to stews and scattering it over foccacia (see today's recipe). Picking a branch and rubbing my fingers along its tough, glossy leaves to release their bracing, pine-y scent is sometimes all it takes to perk me up in the middle of a busy day. So I care nothing for the old saying that where rosemary flourishes, the woman of the household rules.

Authentic Indian flatbreads (naan) can be shallow fried or baked - they cook in just 15 mins

Oven-fresh bread is one of life’s simple joys. Ciabatta, a crisp-crusted Italian bread with hints of sourdough and loads of crannies longing for butter, is one of the easiest breads to make at home.

Making bread takes time, but it’s not difficult. Try Paul Hollywood’s recipe for a delicious crusty loaf.

Robyn Eckhardt from eatingasia.typepad.com told me about a tahini bun she'd had in Istanbul and asked, "Why not peanut butter?" I started thinking about peanuts, salt and chilli, and by the end of the day was eating this with slices of chorizo.

How to make a sourdough starter for homemade bread.